A Quaker Voyage in 1784

Notes and Documents91 So then they would by this means come to the Royal Law and to the Royal Society indeed, which is above all Societies that Nations, Peoples, Tongues and Languages have made, in all which there is Discord (p. 18, cf. pp. 24, 35, etc.) Three or four years before, in 1668, when Fox wrote the very similar Gospel-Liberty, and the Royal Law of Love, it evidently had not occurred to him to connect the scriptural "royal law of liberty" with the British Royal Society. He does not make invidious comparisons as Isaac Penington does that same year. Probably he knew less about the learned society's purpose. Slight though his knowledge may have been, it is additional evidence that the new Society penetrated to the consciousness of Friends. A QUAKER VOYAGE IN 1784 Edited by William Wistar Comfort A little band of Quakers set out from the Delaware on the Commerce, Captain Thomas Truxtun, on April 25, 1784. The bestknown account of their voyage to Gravesend is that of Rebecca Jones from which William J. Allinson published extended extracts in his Memorials of Rebecca Jones. Unfortunately the present whereabouts of her diary east-bound is not known, though the manuscript of her return voyage is in the Haverford College Library. There also, loaned by Mrs. Edward Wanton Smith of Germantown, is the manuscript account of the same east-bound voyage by another passenger, Sarah Hill Dillwyn, less celebrated than her famous and beloved husband George Dillwyn (1738-1820) , but belonging to a large family connection whose many descendants still survive. This Sarah Hill (1738/9-1826) who was married to George Dillwyn in 1759 never had any children of her own, but she had so many devoted sisters and nieces and nephews that she never suffered from lack of company and correspondents. The reader interested in further identifications than are necessary here is referred to Letters of Doctor Richard Hill and his Children collected and arranged by John Jay Smith (Philadelphia, 1854), Recollections of John Jay Smith (Philadelphia, 1892), and Memorials of Rebecca Jones by William J. Allinson (Philadelphia, n.d.). It seems that there was great activity among traveling ministers after the conclusion of the Revolutionary War. On this voyage went Thomas Ross, Samuel Emlen, Sr., and Samuel Emlen, Jr. (who was later to marry Susanna Dillwyn, niece of George), the two Dillwyns 92Bulletin of Friends Historical Association themselves, Mehetabel Jenkins, and Rebecca Jones. It was a very congenial Quaker party which so filled the cabin quarters of the little ship that there were only two other cabin passengers. Several incidents in Sarah Dillwyn's journal-letter here published are also mentioned by Rebecca Jones. But what follows is Sarah's, misspelled words and all. Life for five weeks on this tiny vessel may be compared with that of Friends traveling to Oxford in 1952. Perhaps there was more difference in the circumstances attending what Rebecca Jones called their "watery peregrination" than in the spirit which animated the travelers. Sarah Dillwyn was abroad with her husband for seven years on this journey and again in 1793 for nine years more. But this is her first voyage and, though not a gifted journalist, she enables us to share with her relatives in what she considered the features of life at sea. 1784. We have uncommon fine weather, & as I've been writeing to my precious Sister Moore,1 I thought I must not neglect my dear Sister Morris,2 who I am much with in mind. Nor do I think that Seperation or new connections will ever be the means of driving from my memory the many acts of kindness thy fond heart was continually heaping on me. How will my poor Mamma Worral3 & Sister Nancy4 miss thee when the leaves Burlington. We have all been very sick, (but my self the least so) I mean the Women & my poor G.D. whose loose fore tooth has at last drop'd out. The Captain has just told us that we have gone the last 24 hours exactly 240 miles, & that a man might go to Sea his whole life without having such fine weather, our first week was very rough...